Intro:

It is not hard to point out the hypocrisy of Christian apologist, Steve Hays.  Hays will often be found to turn on a dime within a sentence or two of a vicious denouncement to commit the very same intellectual crime without any justification whatsoever.  For example, in "This Joyful Eastertide," which is a book length response to the skeptical anthology, "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave," Hays calls conspiracy theories, "the refuge of all intellectual scoundrels."  It doesn't take him long to outdo any skeptic out there.

Hays says:

i) Ufology is the delinquent child of modern science. An ufologist is often a smart, sophisticated individual, deeply committed to secular science. His worldview is the same as [atheist, Richard Carrier’s]. And while it’s easy to make fun of ufology, an astute ufologist has a well-lubricated answer to all the stock objections.

The very existence of ufology undercuts Carrier’s Humean analysis of Christian faith as a throwback to the retrograde outlook of primitive superstition and ignorance. For an ufologist can be a very bright and highly educated individual—indoctrinated in the very fields, and professing the same presuppositions, which Carrier regards as the antidote to Christian faith. Once gain, Carrier is trying to ride two different horses.

ii) Actually, if you do some research on ufology, you find a striking connection between “alien abductions” and Old Hag Syndrome (also called ASP). Since Old Hag Syndrome appears to be a cultural universal, this would suggest that there is a core experience which underlies ufology. In prescientific times, this “encounter” was construed in occultic categories of possession and the like. But in the space age, with the popularity of science fiction, this is reinterpreted in terms of alien encounters rather than demonic encounters.

So, in my opinion, ufology should not be dismissed out of hand, but understood for what it really is, at least some of the time, as an essentially occultic phenomenon with a pseudoscientific overlay.

iii) The Roswell legend is, of course, just one thread in the fabric of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are the snare of bright minds. They have just enough suggestive, tantalizing evidence to be appealing, but never enough evidence to be compelling. On the face of it, it does seem as though things are often a little too coincidental to be…well…to be coincidental.

And yet we know that such a grand conspiracy is far too large and complicated to be orchestrated and kept under wraps by human ingenuity alone.

But there is an explanation for this. There is, indeed, a conspiracy. A very well kept conspiracy. So well kept that it’s even a secret to the coconspirators. They are not in on the plot.

For the mastermind is the “god of this world.” Satan is the one who, behind-the-scenes, is pulling the strings of human pride—pride in our tolerance and utopian cloud castles.

Inside the Devil’s sleeper cell, you can be under deep cover without ever knowing so. You can do his bidding without any apprehension of the diabolical choreography. Most of the devil’s militia are unwitting draftees, conscripted in the trippy state of sin.
 
So the conspiracy theorist is half-right and half-wrong. Indeed, the conspiracy theorist is often a dupe of the Devil himself—chasing after Jewish bankers and flying saucers. The Devil lays just enough crumbs in his path to keep him on the scent, but never enough to lead him to the infernal hideout and hellish headquarters of the movement.
 
Conspiracies are ultimately concentric: if a human conspiracy lies within the wider circle of a diabolical conspiracy, then the diabolical conspiracy lies within the wider circle of a divine conspiracy. In the end, the Devil is only God’s useful idiot.
 
Carrier goes on to compare the NT writers with snake-handling charismatics.

And how dare he make such a comparison!  Really!

Hays says:

Because the average atheist suffers from a persecution-complex, he is prone to crackpot theories of church history. This sort of cosmic paranoia is both understandable and irrational.

In fact, there’s an ironic sense in which he’s right: God really is out to get him! I don’t suppose, though, that Richard Carrier would readily avail himself of this particular explanation.

Hays says:

Carrier then relates a personal anecdote:

In addition to a vivid Taoist mystical experience of an obviously hallucinatory nature, there was a night when I fought with a demon trying to crush my chest—the experience felt absolutely real, and I was certainly awake, probably in a hypnagogic state. I could see and feel the demon sitting on me, preventing me from breathing, but when I “punched” it, it vanished. It is all the more remarkable that I have never believed in demons, and the creature I saw did not resemble anything I have ever seen or imagined before. So what was it? Supernatural encounter or hallucination? You decide.

i) This is a classic case of “Old Hag Syndrome” or ASP, which is a widely attested phenomenon. Here we see the power of ideology to trump evidence. Here he recounts a personal experience of an especially immediate kind—equivalent to a self-presenting state. And yet his secular philosophy, which is based, at best, on secondhand information worked into a worldview with various interpolations and extrapolations, takes precedence over his own direct awareness.

ii) Notice that he expects the reader to believe this story without benefit of any multiple-attestation. He holds himself to one standard, and Scripture to another.

iii) Speaking for myself, I find it more than plausible that a man who was dabbling in the occult (Taoism) would leave himself wide open to the demonic—especially in the case of an apostate like Carrier. Those that pray to false gods become the devil’s prey."

Please ignore the "sleep paralysis hallucination" theory.  That one is just too crazy for Hays.  Also note that Christian apologist, J. P. Holding, also felt free to pounce on Carrier's dogmatic skepticism (see: "J. P. Holding's "Leaning Tower of Preterism"), yet dismissed the eyewitness testimony himself because he's a Preterist.

Hays says:

One effect of the gospel is to exorcise the land. The more Christians you have, the fewer demoniacs you have. The more Christians you have, the less occult activity you have. If there is less evidence of occult phenomena at present than in the past, that is evidence, not of secularism, but of the success of the gospel. And it is no coincidence that the decline of the faith in modern-day Europe has corresponded with a rise of the occult.

Hays says:

Carrier’s Freudian psychobabble is on the same evidentiary plane as repressed memories of Satanic ritual mass murder. It’s pretty interesting that a man who, just two pages before, was appealing to neuroscience, which claims to be a hard science, can, in the very next breath, go Freudian on us—even though this is regarded as pseudoscience by scientifically trained critics.

Outro:

I didn't think this needed much comment.

Ben

Intro:

This is part of my review series on the skeptical anthology, "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave" (ET).  Basically I've lifted this little bit from my material on chapter 4 of that book, which is the essay, "Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation" written by Robert Price (which can actually be found many places online).

The reason I'm bumping this up is because J. P. Holding and Richard Carrier recently debated in person on the related topic of the textual reliability of the New Testament and I hope to build on what's gone before between skeptics and Christians.  I wanted to split my massive posts on the material into readable blog nuggets anyway rather than leaving them as book length posts.

Steve Hays from Triablogue (in the ebook, "This Joyful Eastertide") and Stephen Davis (his criticisms are in a philosophy paper you'd have to pay for) are addressing Price's arguments.  I've tried to play all their points against each other to see what the arguments amount to from an outsider perspective.

In this case, Hays tries to pit Robert Price against agnostic scholar, Bart Ehrman:

Ehrman, however, makes his case on the basis of comparative textual criticism, based on different kinds of textual variants.  But that would constitute external rather than internal evidence. So Price is citing Ehrman to support a position to which Ehrman does not subscribe.

So Hays honestly thinks Ehrman believes there are NO interpolations before the time period where manuscript comparisons are viable and that ONLY comparative manuscript evidence is viable in finding early interpolations?  That's just plain silly.  Ehrman recites the Bible Skeptics Creed just like the rest of us anti-Jesus drones (and pay no attention to his most recent book, "Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are").  It is as though Hays didn't read Price's note:

Ibid., 614; cf. Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 277: "this study has reinforced the notion that theologically motivated changes of the text are to be anticipated particularly during the early centuries of transmission, when both the texts and the theology of early Christianity were in a state of flux, prior to the development of a recognized creed and an authoritative and (theoretically) inviolable canon of Scripture." See also pages 55 and 97.

Clearly Bart and Bob are on the same page here, despite Hays' shallow attempt to pit them against each other.  

But Hays adds:

In addition, Ehrman admits that “by far the vast majority [of textual variants] are purely ‘accidental,’ readily explained as resulting from scribal ineptitude, carelessness, or fatigue.”

If only the tug of war here in this chapter weren't over one wittle passage, that might mean something.  Hays goes on to quote Ehrman's critics and I agree with them.  Ehrman often oversells his case.  But, as I just said, this is just over one wittle passage that happens to be vastly important to conservative scholarship (truly a thin thread to hang your explanatory hat on).  And petty human politics behind some overly convenient inserted verses is more probable than something supporting a genuine historical supernatural core any day of the week (as I've explained before).   Further the "appearance" claims of 1 Corinthians 15 aren't particularly strong anyway in any event.  So it's a lot of fuss over nothing.

Stephen Davis definitely read Price's Ehrman footnote and says:

Price sympathetically quotes Bart D. Ehrman, who says: "theologically motivated changes of the text are to be anticipated particularly during the early centuries of transmission, when both the texts and the theology of early Christianity were in a state of flux, prior to The development of a recognized creed..." If we were talking about the church's theology of the incarnation or the Trinity, this claim might have some plausibility. But when we are talking about the assertion that God raised Jesus from the dead, Ehrman's argument is hardly convincing. I would have thought that everyone recognizes that this claim was bedrock in the Christian movement from the very beginning. At that point, there was a recognized creed.

But "...the assertion that God raised Jesus from the dead..." is what the entire rest of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is about.  The premise doesn't vanish from the argument without verses 3-11.  A later Christian group may have had an interest in re-characterizing the nature of that core assertion just as Price has been arguing.  If it is just a recharacterization that doesn't destroy the argument, then there's no reason that Ehrman's argument can't apply.

Further, Price challenges Davis to defend that the resurrection really was the core assertion of the original Christian movement:

Was the resurrection of Jesus the bedrock teaching of Christianity from the hour anybody first believed? We cannot assume that. (And by the way, my argument does not suppose that Christians had a loose grasp on Jesus’ resurrection, only that the list of appearances is an interpolation.) I guess Davis owes us, for the sake of the argument, an explanation of why he rejects Burton L. Mack’s rejection of the Big Bang model, held by Bultmann as well as by Calvin and Luther, i.e., that some Easter morning experience is the singularity from which all Christianity expanded. What if, instead, there were many types of Jesus or Christ belief, and that some developed resurrection faith to answer certain needs, while others (e.g., the Q community) did not? It’s at least an open question whether the resurrection doctrine was the beginning of Christianity.

Haven't seen a response to this anywhere and I'm not qualified to take this any further.

Outro:

Hays just doesn't seem to pay too close attention to the arguments he's addressing.  He was covering a lot of ground with "This Joyful Eastertide," but it seems his book length review greatly suffered for that on numerous counts as I will be demonstrating again and again (so stay tuned).  And Davis just gets things wrong in no particular pattern it seems (at least not one that I've discerned yet).

Ben

Intro:

Previously I went over the dialog between Christians and skeptics over the possibility that the early Christian churches conveniently adjusted their sacred writings for religious and/or political ends.  That was a sort of a warm up to getting into the Richard Carrier vs. J. P. Holding debate.  And...we're still warming up here (see my last post on expectations) with the organizer of the event's preliminary remarks on the basic cases that each party laid out.

Cameron says:

Throughout his presentation Carrier focused on the period 50-120 A.D. This is when the NT was initially written and copied; it's also the period we know the least about because we have no surviving manuscripts from this early in the NT's transmission. This is significant, according to Carrier, because the copies of the text we do have were made to agree with each other (harmonized) where they originally disagreed, contain interpolations (later additions not found in the original text) and spelling errors, some of which have serious implications. 

Carrier is not completely wrong in his analysis. The text was edited in hundreds of places as it was copied, and he provided several examples for each of three kinds of changes he mentioned. But the important question is one of significance. And despite illustrating that changes were made, I think this is where Carrier failed to make his case that we can't know what was originally written.  I'll look at some of these examples in the next couple of days

Significance?  We'll have to see the details of course, but generally speaking there is already significance.  For those of you that read apologetic rebuttals like I do, the "significance" is that skeptical explanations of the evidence do not have to take seriously every little detail of every account. When all is said and done, the "evidentialists" want to take the Bible at face value like "The Bible tells me so" is a reasonable position.  Perhaps secretly they are advocating for Biblical inerrancy even when they attempt a "minimal facts" approach, or their subjective level of trust in the New Testament documents simply shines through no matter what.  They may just not process reasonable doubt and this is an important level of ambiguity to point the skeptical stick at.  Skeptical explanations often get portrayed as "magic bullet" explanations just because the apologist isn't willing to own up to how ridiculous it is that they won't doubt a single detail from the texts.  Skeptical explanations of the naturalistic variety are necessarily more general, because we don't trust what we have for many reasons.  Carrier's case here contributes to that end (or at least, is meant to).

I attempted to explain where I thought an informed skeptic is typically coming from when engaging the historical claims of Christianity on this topic and it would be a shame if Christians ignored the basic principles of the infamous "outsider test for faith" expecting a massive amount of evidence to drop out of the sky (or emerge from history in this case) and push back on their level of Christian-encultured incredulity.  In any other similar circumstances, we probably wouldn't be that trusting of the origins of a religious or political movement if that movement had ample opportunity to fudge the data in various ways even if we had no definitive reason to believe they did.  If these were ancients Democrats and Republicans making their case, and you were on either opposite side of that fence, would you just believe the one side of the story?  Would you take their factual claims at face value?  Would you believe in their assertions of sincerity?  What would you make of the silence or absence of their opposition from the historical record?  Etc. 

Their credibility may not be guilty until proven innocent, but it won't be compelling until thoroughly scrutinized and heavily proven, either.  Any historical assertions are allowed to fly otherwise as long as history just so happens not to directly bust the claims in some definitive way.

Outro:

Note, that David Fitzgerald had a pretty good comment on that post. 

Video and/or audio on the debate is still unavailable, but apparently it is forthcoming. 

Ben

Atheist/historian Richard Carrier recently debated Christian apologist/librarian J. P. Holding on the "Textual Reliability of the New Testament" or more specifically, "Do we have what they had?" Tidbits are trickling through the internet, so I'll give my preliminary sentiments based on where I happen to be coming from.

There are so many debates nested around NT studies between educated believers and skeptics that no matter how dedicated you are, you simply can't dive into every single one of them in depth (and apparently this doesn't change even when you are a professional, and if you listen to others, it seems infinitely worse).  It seems I tend to be aware of many of them and at least have some idea of how the positions are argued, but the well justified clinching details that may sell one case over another are often beyond reach for practicality sake (especially if I identify upfront the end result of any given debate as having either little impact or relevance overall in any event, such as with the documentary hypothesis). 

Even having reviewed the entire dialog between skeptics and Christians over the arguments made by Robert Price in "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave" (including Price's response to those critics), it didn't really go that far.  Either there just isn't very far to go, no one happens to know how to make those cases in depth, or for whatever reason the sensibilities of either party just never takes us there (or some combination).  I've read a few of Bart Ehrman's books on the topic and even those didn't seem to have a lot going for them in this regard.  I'm hopeful that Carrier has pushed that envelope as far as it can go based on the available evidence since he seemed eager to have this kind of debate.  And at least Holding seems aware enough of skeptic arguments and what actual trained historians have said on the Christian side of things to perhaps shed that kind of light the other direction.  Maybe we'll walk away with a clearer view overall.   

So...I'm just asking for more depth and intellectual honesty from both sides.  I want to see people cite the actual sources, articulate their specific claims without relying on innuendo and worldview prejudice, and be reasonable with the relative weaknesses of their cases.  It's also nice to know (here and here) that perhaps the conversation moved up out of nonsensical defensive rhetoric land and into "explaining what the deal is" land thanks to those healthy social pressures of in person debate which tend to summon their better foot forward rather than the empathy-deficient internet banter does (though some exceptions do apply).  Perhaps folks on both sides can learn to take it down a notch thanks to this event.

Intro:

This is part of my review series on the skeptical anthology, "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave" (ET).  Basically I've lifted this little bit from my material on chapter 4 of that book, which is the essay, "Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation" written by Robert Price (which can actually be found many places online). 

The reason I'm bumping this up is because J. P. Holding and Richard Carrier recently debated in person on the related topic of the textual reliability of the New Testament and I hope to build on what's gone before between skeptics and Christians.

Chris Price from Christian CADRE, J. P. Holding from Tektonics (in an essay that was online, but is now in the book, "Trusting the New Testament"), Steve Hays from Triablogue (in the ebook, "This Joyful Eastertide"), Stephen Davis (which is in a philosophy paper you'd have to pay for), and Norman Geisler are addressing Price's arguments.  I've tried to play all their points against each other to see what the arguments amount to from an outsider perspective.

Chris Price says:

However, Holding says:

Robert Price had quoted William O. Walker Jr. to explain himself (page 71):

...the surviving text of the Pauline letters is the text promoted by the historical winners in the theological and ecclesiastical struggles of the second and third centuries….In short, it appears likely that the emerging Catholic leadership in the churches ‘standardized’ the text of the Pauline corpus in the light of ‘orthodox’ views and practices, suppressing and even destroying all deviant texts and manuscripts.  Thus it is that we have no manuscripts dating from earlier than the third century; thus it is that all of the extant manuscripts are remarkably similar in most of their significant features; and thus it is that the manuscript evidence can tell us nothing about the state of the Pauline literature prior to the third century.

Although Hays complains:

I imagine someone like Hays would be disgruntled if we entertain both options since at this point the evidence would be compatible with either, right? Do we have to be dogmatic either way? 

Holding seems to think we do:

I don't see anyone claiming that there MUST have been interpolations. The skeptical case (as far as I can piece it together from Price, Bart Ehrman, and Carrier) seems to be: 

1.  We know such things did happen later (when it is easy to prove with manuscript evidence). 

2.  Inference to naturalism implying more modest starting conditions to any given religious movement. 

3.  Obvious political and/or religious motives given the ubiquity of such human politics. 

4.  Opportunity and our ignorance one way or the other in key early stages. 

5.  How much is on the line to believe otherwise (a worldview is making a pitch to the rest of the world). 

So, it is reasonable to assume that there *probably* were (as in at least more likely than not) and that there's no compelling reason to suppose we can rest assured there weren't.  This argument has the most force given 2 combined with 5 and it only has meaning when Christians in a positive sense wish to assert their arbitrary confidence that their religion *didn't* get tweaked in important ways when no one was looking. 

So apart from a much larger worldview and personal context, the skeptical argument doesn't seem to have much compelling force on the spot.  If this were just some random academic question between two professors of historical magic in a world filled with legitimate magical claims and we wanted to happen to know about particular instances in history where particular individuals inflated their cases, there really wouldn't be a lot to work with.  We'd just shrug our shoulders and walk away it seems. 

Holding calls Walker's line of reasoning a "fallacy of association" (as in, just because kid x hangs out with pot heads doesn't necessarily mean he smokes pot, too) as though certainties are being presented.  It is logically possible that there were no interpolations (just like it is possible you hang out with potheads and don't join in) and I don't think Price, Walker, Carrier, or Ehrman would disagree with that (though your mom probably won't buy the "fallacy of association" defense).  Why does Holding feel the need to overstate the claim?  Is it because there's no defense against these mundane uncertainties?  

Davis says that Robert Price wants to make up for the lack of manuscript evidence:

Indeed, he would no longer have to argue, along with William G. Walker, that powerful and sinister forces in the Great Church around the year 300 made sure to suppress earlier texts of 1 Corinthians that did not include 15:3-11.

Robert Price, in response to Davis, says:

Hays seems to have his doubts:

Geisler has his doubts, too, and calls it implausible speculation:

...[Price's] argument from the adage that “history is written by the winners” (71) is implausible and contrary to fact. For this is not always true. Indeed, on the accepted dates of 1 Corinthians (A.D. 55-56) by even most critical scholars, Christianity was not a political winner. In fact, it was not a winner until centuries later.

Um...I think by "political winner" Price is talking about Christian sect on Christian sect action...not Christian sect on Pagan action.

Holding asserts:

And Hays complains:

At the very least, an elementary distinction needs to be drawn between the active destruction of extant writings and the failure to preserve them.

As though Carrier were psychic, in a footnote, in another chapter of ET (that book both Hays and Holding are responding to), Carrier partially agrees with Holding and makes that necessary "elementary distinction:"

Hays admits he has no imagination:

Cf. James Robinson, “Jesus from Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles’ Creed),” Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982): pp. 5-37.

So unfortunately this "dialog" ends with a whole bunch of back and forth assertions and an even bigger reading list as though between 7 or so authors commenting we couldn't do better than that?  *sigh*

Outro:

I've been working on my review of The Empty Tomb off and on since 2007ish and have always been disappointed with the lack of detailed argument from either side.  Getting intimate and non-defensive interaction that clarifies the state of the evidence would be nice.  Let's hope we get somewhere with more info on the Carrier vs. Holding debate.

Ben

Intro:

Christian apologists from around the world gathered in San Diego to discuss honestly their misgivings about defending the faith.  It was an unprecedented, no-holds-barred, "skeptifest" of Biblical proportions.  It had been long supposed that Christians could stand up to any intellectual attacks and hence had nothing to fear from brandishing their confidence for all to see.  Everyone was encouraged to get their most skeptical thoughts and doubts "out there" and see what others had to say.  By some accounts, from some of my atheist friends who were allowed to attend, this apparently snow-balled into mass apostasy.  I'm still a little skeptical, but I've pulled some intriguing quotes from the transcript.  Take a look...

At first everyone was a bit squeamish to speak and a few offered some rather vague random points of contention that really didn't matter that much to the big picture.  Finally, William Lane Craig just blurted out why he'd apparently stopped trusting the Holy Spirit:

Of course, anyone (or, at least any sort of theist) can claim to have a self-authenticating witness of God to the truth of his religion. [...] they've just had some emotional experience...

Dead silence.  Um...that's the HOLY FREAKING SPIRIT you are talking about.  And yet Richard Swinburne cheered Craig on and was remarkably sarcastic noting (with air quotes no less) we'd never want to be forced into certain absurdities based on that kind of evidence:

...if it seems to me Poseidon exists, then it is good evidence that Poseidon exists.

He had the whole crowd rolling with laughter since they all knew that the Greek pantheon had a long history of success in the hearts and minds of ancient Greeks.  Were they really going there?  Maybe I'm missing something.

Staunch evidentialist, Lydia McGrew, wanted to turn the conversation to more tangible matters and get the ball rolling on discussing her lack of confidence in the resurrection of Jesus: 

Well of course the prior probability is very low and we all know that. [...]

There’s a most unfortunate passage by G. K. Chesterton in which he says, “If my Apple woman, the woman who sells me apples tells me that she saw a miracle I should believe her. I believe her about apples so I should believe her about miracles.” That’s a paraphrase; it’s not an exact quotation.

I really wish Chesterton hadn’t said that because that’s just wrong as an approach. You don’t just automatically say, “Oh, somebody says they saw a miracle, I’m going to buy it.” You have to have much stronger evidence than that.

Indeed.  I can agree with that.  Triablogger, Steve Hays immediately piped up with three pertinent examples of the kind of evidence we would need to justify various kinds of similar extraordinary claims: 

[In reference to having an alien spaceship]  On the face of it, I could discharge my burden of proof by showing you the spacecraft.  Of course, you might insist on having it properly inspected (to eliminate a hoax).

So what evidence would I need to prove that I own this unique coin? [...]  Ideally, the only evidence I'd need to prove that I own this unique coin is the coin itself. My ability to produce the coin upon request.  Maybe you'd demand that the coin be authenticated. Fine.

...suppose I call you up and tell you I've just won the lottery (and on the first occasion I've ever bought a ticket). Surely that's an extraordinary claim. Naturally you're skeptical, so I invite you over to my house, where you see with your own eyes both my ticket and the newspaper reporting the winning numbers. I'd say that would be sufficient for you to rationally believe that I've won the lottery.

So it was a case of a highly improbable event that required evidence of a[n] admittedly powerful [...] kind in order to be rationally believed.

I can't help but note that it was almost as though the words of atheist, Richard Carrier, were on the minds of all those in attendance:

If Jesus was a god and really wanted to save the world, he would have appeared and delivered his Gospel personally to the whole world.

Recognizing of course that Jesus didn't do this, Craig spoke up again to say what had been weighing on everyone's mind since the conference began: 

...you are thinking, “Well, goodness, if believing in God is a matter of weighing all of these sorts of arguments, then how can anybody know whether God exists? You'd have to be a philosopher or a scientist to figure out whether God exists!” In fact, I agree with you. A loving God would not leave it up to us to figure out by our own ingenuity and cleverness whether or not he exists.

People were clearly shocked.  And it got everyone lingering on the problem of evil.  Hays spoke up again to point out that the long standing explanations for evil from Calvinism and Arminianism both suck: 

...it sounds bad [...] to say that God predestined sin and evil. However, it also sounds bad to say that God allows sin and evil.

Everyone was dismayed by this.  How could they all have been defending such bad explanations for evil all of this time?  How in the world had Christian apologetics kept up with it?  They weren't all that stupid and/or delusion were they!?!  No one especially wanted to hear atheist, John Loftus, say, "I told you so."  Even though their faiths seemed to be cracking under the weight of their collective doubts, they all agreed no one wanted to hear that guy gloat. 

Hays had clearly been thinking things through and gave everyone an astute analogy to help explain where most everyone had gone wrong with their apologetic sensibilities: 

Almost too proud of himself for how well he'd explained things, something clearly snapped in his mind.  Hays collapsed on the floor in front of everyone and started mumbling almost incoherently.  It seemed he was talking about himself though he couldn't bring himself to even speak in the first person:

...he indulges in so many ad hominem attacks [...] which includes that constitutional incapacity for self criticism in its judgmental criticism of others which emboldens him to openly expose his emotional insecurities, oblivious to the disconnect between the image he is laboring to project and what is really coming through.

It also seemed that he was admitting that all of his previous apologetic efforts could not be said to:

...move us from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge.

He'd realized that too many people had been wondering if Hays was:

...really that dense, or if he is just playing dumb to advance his agenda.

And whether or not it was always just a "rhetorical tactic:"

...to impose an all-or-nothing dilemma on the reader.

Hays was okay apparently and someone nursed him back to health in a corner of the room as the conference moved on.  Was he really talking about himself?!?  We may never know.

The next day after Hays had recomposed himself, he was overheard talking to fellow Triablogger, Jason Engwer, about all the horrible things that he'd said about agnostic, Ed Babinski, to get out of the force of the case in Ed's "The Cosmology of the Bible" chapter in "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails."  Hays finally admitted it was implausible to dismiss all the evidence that the Bible embraces a false cosmology:

Mixed metaphors are mutually inconsistent if taken literally, but a wide variety of metaphors can and do figurate the very same concept.

So I guess they did understand the criticism after all to all their hairsplitting?  Not sure. 

Elsewhere, William Lane Craig was overheard discussing the many universes hypothesis with Robin Collins:

We appear then to be confronted with two alternatives: posit either a cosmic Designer or an exhaustively random, infinite number of other worlds. Faced with these options, is not theism just as rational a choice as multiple worlds?

They both agreed they hadn't taken the hypothesis seriously enough in the past and that we really weren't in any position to decide between two rational options.   I didn't think Christians were capable of agnosticism on that issue...

Near the end of the conference there were a lot of tears shed and everyone was looking around at each other a bit anxiously, thankful they had not brought any babies to test their new atheist appetites on or any children to dismember to make sure they were made of all atoms.  Triablogger, Paul Manata went around poking walls, waiving his arms up and down, and testing various places on the floor to check on the uniformity of the universe for everyone.  He kept yelling, "It's all clear!" over and over again to the annoyance of all.  Finally they told him to shut up and that they should just go with it until further notice.  However everyone was still bracing for impact and wondering how they could prepare for the inevitable Nazi-brainwashing-rapist-regime that was sure to sweep the whole world away from them now that they'd changed their minds about Jesus.

Fortunately libertarian renegade and (former) theologian extraordinaire, Vox Day spoke up to call attention to atheist, Sam Harris' book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values":

I have to applaud Sam for having the intellectual courage to seize the bull by the horns; unlike his fellow New Atheists (except Daniel Dennett), he has recognized the weak point of the lack of universal warrant and is attempting to do something about it.

So amazingly, all was not lost. 

Outro:

If anyone has any other interesting quotes from the conference, post them in the comments, please.

Ben

Intro: 

This series is an atheist's review of an important anthology critical of Christian beliefs called, "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD), that is likely to be popularly discussed across the web.    I'll be reviewing the book in light of just about every other response to TCD on the web (pros and cons) and responding to new Christian objections as I find them.  I think this will be the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.

Chapter 5, "The Cosmology of the Bible" by Ed Babinski (part 5 of 5):  

I decided to go ahead and add another part to my review of chapter 5 just for the sake of The Infidel Delusion (TID). 

In a post called, "Rock and roll," Christian reviewer, Steve Hays tells Babinski:

A sustained critique, eh?  Interesting idea.  Maybe I should try that sometime.  Christian reviewer, Jason Engwer echoes the same sentiments in the comments of two posts, "Newton's bucket" and "Borrowed Cosmology." 

Anyway, in TID, Engwer made 12 basic points, Hays made 21, and Christian reviewer, Paul Manata made 2.  That's 35 points with many sub points on various items (especially when you splice in the three Appendixes aimed at Babinski).  There are also 28 posts (so far, as of November 2010) at Triablogue elaborating, reiterating, defending, and/or interacting with Babinski.  Talking points from those have been spliced in where I thought they were the most relevant.  All told there are over 100 objections here to Babinski's chapter that I've responded to.  The table of contents below can be used to quickly skim the entire interaction and see what the approaches basically amount to (and clicked on for detail).  I don't think I've missed anything significant.

Engwer circulates and elaborates on many of the typical ambiguity issues addressed in part 1 of my series.  It is about as bottom of the barrel as it gets though when apologists are forced in their worst case scenario to defend a model of inerrancy where the Bible authors believe x, but somehow don't mean x when they write x in documents that would later become the Bible (and apparently God doesn't mean it either).   In the comments of a post called, "Newton's bucket," Engwer says:

In a discussion with WAR_ON_ERROR earlier this year, I said that I think the cosmological argument against the Bible has some merit. It is significant that so many false cosmological views and cosmological ignorance existed in the past, that the Biblical authors sometimes made comments that could be taken as false cosmological claims, etc. But I don't think the argument is significant enough to refute Christianity or Biblical inerrancy on its own. It can strengthen a cumulative case, but I don't think it's sufficient by itself. And I think the larger context favors inerrancy rather than errancy.

It seems that Engwer admits that Babinski's contribution to TCD was basically a success.  I have to agree with Babinski though that in order to claim that inerrancy hasn't been refuted, one has to take what I call  the "Mario-toe" position [see image >>>].  However even a cumulative case that doesn't establish the skeptical conclusion with 100% certainty so there's no real reason to defer to that possibility that would be just as equally "rejectable" with those standards (picture lots of Marios all standing on their one pixel tippy-toes). 

It may be important to note where Hays is coming from.  In "This Joyful Eastertide," which is a book length response to the skeptical anthology, "The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave," Hays explains:

The closest thing we can ever get to a direct description of the way things are is a description supplied by the Creator of the world.

It seems from Hays' perspective he has a lot of ideology on the line.  The case in Babinski's chapter has the potential to either turn Hays into a flat-earther or refute his religion altogether:

Certainty is the yardstick of probability.  And revelation supplies the yardstick.  The explanatory power of God’s word is what makes explanation possible. Facts without values are literally meaningless. Only the Creator of the world is in a position to interpret the world. If there is an omniscient mind, and if that omniscient mind has revealed to us a finite, but interpreted body of knowledge about the way things are, then we know as much as we need to know.

And:

If Scripture claims to be wholly true, but is only partly true, then the claim is wholly false.

It's no wonder he's so irrationally defensive on this issue.  Tucked away in the Appendixes of TID Hays admits:

Hays is being remarkably candid here and that's surprising coming from him.  To summarize how he did, Hays starts off on the wrong note by misrepresenting and ignoring Babinski's main argument.  Instead of showing us why we should ignore or consistently reinterpret a preponderance of evidence pointing to the conclusion the Bible embraces false cosmology, Hays spends an unnecessary amount of time trying to show that it was possible without the means of modern science to discover more accurate facts about cosmology.  He does this despite the relevancy (and that no skeptic was saying otherwise), since human authors are not supposed to be the ones bringing inerrant content to the Bible.  Another significant theme of his critique is the idea that if certain primitive cosmological ideas can be shown not to entirely make sense, that no one would have believed in them as though everyone always rejects ideas that don't entirely make sense.  Also, if any primitive cosmology rhetoric can be associated with some other concept (like temple imagery, ANE mortuary customs, mystical experiences, etc.), that concept (in Hays' mind at least) gets full credit and it somehow always negates a belief in the primitive ideas as applied to reality.  Hays nitpicks many random points against the general trend of the Biblical evidence, and attempts haplessly to sabotage the use of an appeal to a scholarly majority that presumably is against his perspective.  There are a few instances where Hays defers to various other books with arguments he does not articulate (here, here, here, and here) and I will not be addressing those unless someone wants to send me copies of those books.  Ultimately, Hays can be found to concede the basic points and is just making a special exemption for the Bible apart from it actually earning it on this particular issue. 

Manata takes some lame shots at Babinski and contributes very little to the discussion. 

There are a few loose ends which probably won't have much effect on the overall exchange here that can be tied up later.  I'm sure I've gotten some things wrong here and hopefully some knowledgeable folk will take the time to correct me and improve the general quality of the response (and I mean you, Ed!).  [note:  Thanks Ed for the updates!]

Table of Contents:

Outro:  TID's collective response to Babinski's chapter fails by any reasonable standard and when every logical fallacy and weak argument is said and done the Triabloggers basically admit it. 

Continue reading →

Intro: 

This series is an atheist's review of an important anthology critical of Christian beliefs called, "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD), that is likely to be popularly discussed across the web.  I'll be reviewing the book in light of just about every other response to TCD on the web (pros and cons) and responding to new Christian objections as I find them.  I think this will be the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.

Chapter 4, "The Outsider Test for Faith Revisited" by John Loftus:

This chapter on the "outsider test for faith" (OTF) is John Loftus' home field, so to speak.  He's covered the ground so many times in the past and there isn't a lot to disagree with here.  The vast majority of what he says, he has learned to say well.  The main idea here is that arguments for a worldview need to be geared towards persuading people who do not already agree with the position, rather than just having inherited a position and then defending it in ways that could defend any arbitrary position.  Seems straight forward and common-sensical enough (and I agree with the Christian objections that this isn't really new), but certain issues do come up between atheists and Christians when various elements are over or underplayed.  Please see atheist reviewer, Ken Pulliam's coverage of the strengths of the chapter. 

To summarize the responses from Christian reviewers that I've responded to in this 99 page post of mine (I've responded to over 200 issues, so please see the table of contents for the overview):  Looney rejected the OTF because he believed that it meant we would have to evaluate every single worldview before accepting one.  Jayman777 accepted the gist of the OTF and then moved on presumably to show that his views passed it.  Randal Rauser accepted the gist of the OTF, but went on to say that Loftus goes too far in presumption and not far enough with all other beliefs.  Steve Hays rejects the OTF because he doesn’t think anyone is an outsider to the gist of his theistic/moral paradigm and that anyone who says otherwise is deliberately suppressing that knowledge.  Jason Engwer accepted the gist of the OTF, but expressed that Loftus goes too far with it.  Paul Manata rejects the OTF because he expected a “Socrates is mortal” kind of logical theorem rather than a probabilistic standard and he also bizarrely insisted that he would be cognitively impaired if he stopped thinking Christian thoughts.  There is a lot of senseless nitpicking, and many instances of Christian reviewers putting forth "outsider tests for belief" that they think Loftus should address. 

Contents of My Review (the "CliffsNote" version):

Is it a very biased assumption to treat every religious text as probably false?

We should treat religious texts with the same standards based on their actual implicit merits.

Don't cultural influences, psychological gimmicks, cognitive biases, and double standards cut equally against atheism?

In context, Hays is the one defending his right not to be sufficiently critical, as well as advocating a degree of certainty in terms of metaphysics well beyond any human's expertise.

Can anyone rise above biases or are all appeals doomed to superficiality?

Hays defaults to incredulity and misrepresentation in order to say that atheists like me believe all critical thinking is necessarily social conditioning that can't be corrected or improved upon.

Does Ben fault TID for succeeding?!

It is obvious that I freely fault and praise TCD and TID where each succeed and/or fail, if only Hays wasn't so intent on ignoring evidence contrary to his convenient narratives of the discussion.

Does Loftus misrepresent Hays by claiming that Hays admitted he only has assumptions and not good reasons?

Technically yes, but practically no.  Hays assumes his theistic tacit knowledge is genuine without argument and so Loftus is vindicated in the end.

Does Hays owe Loftus a spiritual autobiography?

Explaining why one has good reasons to declare things about the mental states of an entire people group wouldn't be a bad idea.

Does TCD declare that Christians are psychotic?

No, Loftus specifically goes out of his way to say the opposite.

If Hays has been defending the Christian faith online since 2004 where has Ben been?

Being an intellectually honest agnostic and atheist blogger since 2005. 

Does TCD fail to define delusion?

Nope, Hays just missed it.

If Christianity is culturally conditioned how can it fit the standard definition of delusional that states delusion is counter-cultural?

Unless Hays wants to say that non-believing countries aren't delusional, he's going to have to accept a slight tweak to the definition as well.

Is there no prima facie presumption that Hays' Christian faith flies in the face of the evidence since he has subjected the TCD to sustained replies?

Technically that would make Hays even more delusional than your average Christian (if Christianity is false) since he is literally flying in the face of a great deal of the evidence and argument against his position.

Should Hays have taken it to the next level in his review of TCD?

Hays' version of attacking it on its own terms was grossly superficial and even the further replies here lack any indication that substance will follow.

Is TID at the same level as TCD? 

I have to say that if TCD aimed low (which wasn't consistently the case), TID aimed even lower and didn't help the case for Christians not being delusional.

Are apostates too biased because they are just trying to justify themselves?

Hays seems to think that the difference between defensive and offensive apologetic strategies he says he employs entitles him to conveniently misrepresent the truth.

Didn't Hays, Manata, and Victor Reppert "execute" the OTF in six different ways?

I don't know what Hays is referring to since they have zero kills by my count (whereas I have hundreds here). 

Isn't it a hollowing bullying appeal to intellectual integrity unless an atheist can justify moral realism?

Hays seems to erroneously think that his disagreement with me over naturalistic moral realism has some impact on my motives.

Does Steve need Ben to affirm him?

I don't recall saying he did.

Is Ben over-focused on the OTF?

I'm only as focused on Hay' criticisms of the OTF as much as Hays is, since I'm covering all the chapters of TCD as well.

Should Hays let Loftus off the hook because of the more sensible things Ben advocates?

Hays doesn't explain why he seems to think every atheist has to pay for Loftus' exaggerations or why we can't both elevate the collective conversation despite historical sins on both sides.

Sh'ld yee shaw yir teeth unless ye can bite?

o_0

I respond to Engwer:

Does a god have to convince people into belief objectively? 

If a god wants a confused world where it's impossible to conclude the Christian worldview is true in a responsible way, then no. 

Do skeptical impressions have to always trump positive impressions of Christianity? 

No, but often when addressed together impartially, there isn't much room for a positive belief in the Christian worldview.

Does Loftus go too far with this OTF?

Engwer notes there is some truth to what Loftus is advocating here, but that some aspects are unhealthy overkill.  I basically agree.

I respond to Manata: 

Does Loftus need to pass 20,000 more OTFs to be consistent?

Not if the overlap of the Christianities dies one death. 

Is the OTF a logical truth or a theorem?

It's a probabilistic rule of thumb designed to simply illustrate a typical religious person's inability to be consistent with their standards of evidence and avoid special pleading they'd never accept anywhere else.

How does Loftus get a "highly likely" from a "very likely?"

Manata corrects the equivalent of a typo!  Yay!

If all religions are probably false, then why bother even taking the OTF?

If you'd like to believe the one you've inherited is honestly true despite the odds, then evaluating it impartially makes perfect sense.

Can't Christianity still be true despite the initial low probability against it?

Yes, just like every other worldview might be true.

Does Loftus' OTF commit the genetic fallacy still?

Manata seems to be under the impression we are likely to learn new math skills from taking drugs.

Doesn't the Bible say we're supposed to know Christianity is true by the Holy Spirit?

Do you listen to con artists and apply the investment justifications suggested by infomercials? 

Isn't the OTF beside the point if you can just present good reasons why Christianity is false?

Presenting reasons Christianity is false is an extension of using consistent standards of evidence and often times mere consistency of standards is what entails that Christianity is false. 

Isn't the OTF too vague?

Only if words don't mean things.

Who would take an "outsider test for philosophy" if it had the same structure as the OTF and what standards would we apply?

I would hope so!  And whatever standards we'd apply, hopefully they'd be consistent.

Is Loftus' OTF conclusion related to his OTF premises?

If being probably correct about your worldview is your goal, then yes. 

Does Loftus disagree with Tarico on whether humans are rational?

Yes, if the Bible contradicts itself when it gives conflicting advice about answering a fool according to his folly.  [In other words, no.]

Aren't a large majority of our culturally inherited beliefs also perfectly rational?

The ones we can verify independently certainly are.

Does the OTF get rid of original thinkers?

Yes, just like health care reform means the government is going to kill grandma.

Are some religions more probable than others?

If only we were allowed to have an opinion on that.

Should we treat beliefs that have a low probability of being true as probably false?

By definition, yes.

Is Manata defending his right to be inconsistent with his standards?

It sure does seem like it.

Would Manata be in a state of cognitive paralysis if he took the OTF?

Most definitely.    But a more reasonable person wouldn't.

Would Loftus take a test to see if his cognitive faculties are reliable?

If he could, he would, but that doesn't give religion a pass.

Does Loftus prove that Manata holds double standards?

Loftus' chapter was mostly about setting the standard, not applying it, or addressing every nuance of Manata's personal convictions.

Is Christianity the only reason we can know anything (as C. S. Lewis said)?

Lewis' unverifiable perspective appears to deny the experience of others.

What happens to the OTF when people vastly agree about things at the expense of atheism?

The reverse of the OTF is not blind acceptance of popular beliefs, especially when those beliefs are beyond the realm of human expertise.

Should we evaluate our moral values as outsiders, should Loftus test the "kill babies for fun" moral theory, and are moral relativists in denial of substantial moral common ground across cultural barriers?  

Manata manages to address his own materialistic anxieties if only he'd read himself in context of his other related statements.

Does Loftus' OTF fail at every level?

Nope.  Manata's rebuttal does though.

I respond to Manata's 1st response to Loftus:

Should Manata care that he personally inspired the OTF?

Maybe. Jesus might be mad.

Why can't Loftus see that Manata just wants to point out that the OTF is so horrible?

Perhaps because just about everything Manata has brought up is pretty trivial?

Is Loftus the equivalent of a religious zealot?

Maybe, but it doesn't invalidate the OTF.

Did Loftus reject every Christianity with his insider test for faith?

Manata didn't show that Loftus' ITF didn't invalidate important aspects of most mainstream Christianities.

Would Plantinga's extended A/C model make Loftus premise 2 false?

Not really, but Manata should be proving we have mental god detectors rather than lamely criticizing the OTF.

Is there still no connection between premise 1 and premise 2 of Loftus' OTF?

Premise 2 is pretty much contained in premise one.

Should religious beliefs be justified by other beliefs?

All beliefs are subject to the checks and balances of other beliefs.

Is a possibility a probability?

Quibbling is quibbling.

Is someone holding a winning lottery ticket rational for believing they have it despite the odds against that being true?

The OTB would apply before you know the winning numbers.  Showing the winning numbers is the equivalent of passing the OTB.

Is the OTF too uninteresting to take seriously?

Oh, it's boring as hell, but then again many important things are.

I respond to Manata's 2nd response to Loftus:

Can Loftus appeal to Eller, Tarico, and Long if he has not responded to TID criticisms of those previous chapters?

No, but I did.

Does Loftus admit that some religions are more probable than others.

Yes, but I didn't.

Did Loftus tell us why all religions are equipossible? 

No, but I did.

Would Manata's brain still explode if he ever dared take the OTF?

Yes.  And that's exactly why we want him to take it immediately. 

Random:

Loftus' scientism blunder?

Loftus actually advocates "weak scientism" but he is too easily quote-mine-able otherwise.

Loftus gets it wrong:  Was the atheist, Carl Sagan, making an extraordinary claim when he asserts that the cosmos is all there is?

The short answer:  Yes, he was.  Insert agnosticism instead.

Outro:  My Rating:  4 out of 5 stars

Despite the polemical missteps, the vast majority of what Loftus says works just fine.  Continue reading →